Operation Chaos

by Anderson, Poul

  Abercrombie and Ginny lifted their wands and shouted the few brief words of transformation.

  Crouched back into my corner, peering through a sulfurous reek of fumes, I saw Ginny lurch and then jump for safety. She must have sensed the backlash. There came a shattering explosion and the air was full of flying glass.

  My body shielded Griswold, and the spell didn't do more to me than turn me lupe me. Ginny was on her hands and knees behind a bench, half‑unconscious ... but unhurt, unhurt, praise the good Powers forever. Svartalf‑a Pekingese dog yapped on the shelf. Abercrombie was gone, but a chimpanzee in baggy tweeds stuttered wailing toward the door.

  A fire‑blast rushed before the ape. He whirled, screamed, and shinnied up a steam pipe. The salamander arched its back and howled with laughter.

  "You would use your tricks on Me? Almighty Me, terrible Me, beautiful Me? Ha, they bounce off like water from a hot skillet! And I, I, I am the skillet which is going to fry you!"

  Somehow, the low‑grade melodrama of its speech was not in the least ridiculous. For this was the childish, vainglorious, senselessly consuming thing which was loose on earth to make ashes of men and the homes of men.

  Under the Polaroids, I switched back to human and rose to my feet behind a bench. Griswold turned on a water faucet and squirted a jet with his finger. The salamander hissed in annoyance‑yes, water still hurt, but we had too little liquid here to quench it, you'd need a whole lake by this time?It swung its head, gape‑mouthed, aimed at Griswold, and drew a long breath.

  All is vanity....

  I reeled over to the Bunsen burner that was heating a futile beaker of water. Ginny looked at me through scorched bangs. The room roiled with heat, sweat rivered off me. I didn't have any flash of genius, I acted on raw instinct and tumbled memories.

  "Kill us," I croaked. "Kill us if you dare. Our servant is more powerful than you. He'll hound you to the ends of creation."

  "Your servant?" Flame wreathed the words.

  "Yeah ... I mean yes . . . our servant, that Fire which fears not water!"

  The salamander stepped back a pace, snarling. It was not yet so strong that the very name of water didn't make it flinch. "Show me!" it chattered. "Show me! I dare you!"

  "Our servant ... small, but powerful," I rasped. "Brighter and more beautiful than you, and above harm from the Wet Element." I staggered to the jars of metal samples and grabbed a pair of tongs.

  "Have you the courage to look on him?"

  The salamander bristled. "Have I the courage? Ask rather, does it dare confront Me?"

  I flicked a glance from the corner of my eye. Ginny had risen and was gripping her wand. She scarcely breathed, but her eyes were narrowed.

  There was a silence. It hung like a world's weight in that room, smothering what noises remained: the crackle of fire, Abercrombie's simian gibber, Svartalf s indignant yapping. I took a strip of magnesium in the tongs and held it to the burner flame.

  It burst into a blue‑white actinic radiance from which I turned dazzled eyes. The salamander was less viciously brilliant. I saw the brute accomplish the feat of simultaneously puffing itself up and shrinking back.

  "Behold!" I lifted the burning strip. Behind me, Ginny's rapid mutter came: "O Indra, Abaddon, Lucifer?

  The child mind, incapable of considering more than one thing at a time . . . but for how long a time? I had to hold its full attention for the hundred and twenty seconds required.

  "Fire," said the salamander feverishly. "Only another fire, one tiny piece of that Force from which I came."

  "Can you do this, buster?"

  I plunged the strip into the beaker. Steam puffed from the water, it boiled and bubbled‑and the metal went on burning!

  "?abire ex orbis terrestris?"

  "Mg plus H20 yields Mg0 plus H2," whispered Griswold reverently.

  "It's a trick!" screamed the salamander. "It's impossible! If even I cannot? No!"

  "Stay where you are!" I barked in my best Army manner. "Do you doubt that my servant can follow you wherever you may flee?"

  "I'll kill that little monster!"

  "Go right ahead, chum," I agreed. "Want to fight the duel under the ocean?"

  Whistles skirled above our racket. The police had seen through these windows.

  "I'll show you, I will!" The roar was almost a sob. I ducked behind the bench, pulling Griswold with me. A geyser of flame rushed were I had been.

  "Nyaah, nyaah, nyaah," I called. "You can't catch me! Scaredy‑cat!"

  Svartalf gave me a hard look.

  The floor trembled as the elemental came toward me, not going around the benches but burning its way through them. Heat clawed at my throat. I spun down toward darkness.

  And it was gone. Ginny cried her triumphant "Amen!" and displaced air cracked like thunder.

  I lurched to my feet. Ginny fell into my arms. The police entered the lab and Griswold hollered something about calling the fire department before his whole building whiffed off in smoke. Abercrombie scampered out a window and Svartalf jumped down from the shelf. He forgot that a Pekingese isn't as agile as a cat, and his popeyes bubbled with righteous wrath.

  "Keek‑eek‑eek!" said Abercrombie. "Yip‑yip‑yip!" said Svartalf

  XIII

  OUTSIDE, THE MALL was cool and still. We sat on dewed grass and looked at the moon and thought what a great and simple wonder it is to be alive.

  The geas held us apart, but tenderness lay on Ginny's lips. We scarcely noticed when somebody ran past, us shouting that the salamander was gone, nor when church bells began pealing the news to men an Heaven.

  Svartalf finally roused us with his barking. Gin chuckled. "Poor fellow. I'll change you back as soon I can, but now I've more urgent business. Come on Steve."

  Griswold, assured that his priceless hall was safe followed us at a tactful distance. Svartalf merely where he was . . . too shocked to move, I guess, at idea that there could be more important affairs than turning him back into a cat.

  Dr. Malzius met us halfway, under one of the campus elms. Moonlight spattered his face and gleamed in the pince‑nez. "My dear Miss Graylock," he began, "is it indeed true that you have overcome that menace to society? Most noteworthy. Accept my congratulations. The glorious annals of this great institution of which I have the honor to be president?"

  Ginny faced him, arms akimbo, and nailed him with surely the chilliest gaze he had ever seen. "The credit belongs to Mr. Matuchek and Dr. Griswold," she said. "I shall so inform the press. Doubtless you'll see fit to recommend a larger appropriation for Dr. Griswold's outstanding work."

  "Oh, really," stammered the scientist. "I didn't?"

  "Be quiet, you ninnyhammer," whispered Ginny. Aloud: "Only through his courageous and farsighted adherence to the basic teachings of natural law‑ Well, you can fill in the rest for yourself, Malzius. I don't think you'd be awfully popular if you went on starving his department."

  "Oh . . . indeed . . . after all?" The president expanded himself. "I have already given careful consideration to the idea. Was going to recommend it at the next meeting of the board, in fact."

  "I'll hold you to that," Ginny said. "Next: this stupid rule against student‑faculty relationships. Mr. Matuchek will shortly be my husband‑"

  Whoosh! I tried to regain my breath.

  "My dear Miss Graylock," sputtered Malzius, "decorum . . . propriety . . . why, he isn't even decent!"

  I realized with horror that somehow, in the hullabaloo, I'd lost Ginny's coat.

  A pair of cops approached, dragging a hairy form that struggled in their arms. A third man carried the garments the chimp had shed. "Begging your pardon, Miss Graylock." The tone was pure worship. "We found this monkey loose and?"

  "Oh, yes." She laughed. "We'll have to restore him. But not right away. Steve needs those pants worse."

  I got into them like a snake headed down a hole.

  Ginny turned back to smile with angelic sweetness at Malzius.

  "Poor Dr. Abercrom
bie," she sighed. "These things will happen when you deal with paranatural forces. Now I believe, sir, that you have no rule against faculty members conducting research."

  "Oh, no," said the president shakily. "Of course not. On the contrary! We expect our people to publish‑"

  "To be sure. Well, I have in mind a most interesting research project involving transformations. I'll admit it's a teeny bit dangerous. It could backfire as Dr. Abercrombie's spell did." Ginny leaned on her wand and regarded the turf thoughtfully. "It could even . . . yes, there's even a small possibility that it could turn you into an ape, dear Dr. Malzius. Or, perhaps, a worm. A long slimy one. But we mustn't let that stand in the way of science, must we?"

  "What? But "

  "Naturally," purred the witch, "if I were allowed to conduct myself as I wish with my fianc‚, I wouldn't have time for research."

  Malzius took a bare fifty words to admit defeat. He stumped off in tottery grandeur while the last, fireglow died above the campus roofs.

  Ginny gave me a slow glance. "The rule can't officially be stricken till tomorrow," she murmured. "Think you can cut a few classes then?"

  "Keek‑eek‑eek," said Dr. Alan Abercrombie. Then Svartalf arrived full of resentment and chased him up the tree.

  XIV

  A SHORT INTERLUDE this time. We finished our first academic year okay. Ginny was proud of my straight A's in shamanistics and calculus, and assisted me over some humps in arcane languages. (Griswold did me a similar service for electronics.) She had to modify her own plan of further study somewhat, if we were to get married in June.

  You might think a former high‑salaried New York witch would be anything but innocent. Certainly Ginny had a temper and her special kind of sophistication. However, quite apart from a stubbornly loyal and clean personality, she'd concentrated on those branches of the Art which require maidenhood. That kind of specialist commands fees in proportion to rarity.

  Now my fire‑and‑ice girl was to become only another bride. And what's so only about that? Next year she could acquire the techniques necessary to compensate for being wedded.

  We couldn't entirely hide our roles in snuffing the salamander from the news media; but with the eager cooperation of Malzius, who kept blaring about how the University Team had saved this fair city, we managed to obfuscate it so that we soon dropped out of the public eye. Griswold was conscience‑stricken at receiving more credit than he thought he deserved, and indignant at our receiving less than we deserved, till we pointed out that the first was essential to getting his department modernized and the second to protecting our privacy. Besides, if we wanted to be sure the rule on dating was rescinded, and that conditions at Trismegistus would remain tolerable for us in other respects, we had to give Malzius tacit cooperation in rescuing his pride and not getting stuck with a craven image.

  So, in brief, that winter and spring were wonderful and full of wonder. I could skip well ahead, but can't help dwelling on‑oh, at least the moment when:

  "No," I said to my bride's business associate. You are not coming along on the honeymoon.'

  He laid back his ears. "Meeowrr!" he said resentfully.

  "You'll do fine by yourself in this apartment for a month," I told him. `The superintendent has promiced to feed you every evening, the same time as he sets out the milk for the Brownie. And don't forget, a when the Brownie comes in here, you are not to chase after him. After the last time you did that, three times in a row when Ginny and I went out to dinner, the, Good People sweetened our martinis.'

  Svartalf glowered, yellow‑eyed, and switched his tail. I imagine that was cat for, Well, dammit, anything the size of a mouse, which scuttles like a mouse, has got to expect to be treated like a mouse.

  "He'll be here to dust and change your litterbox," I reminded Svartalf in my sternest voice. "You'll have the run of the place, and you can fly up the chimney's on the whisk broom anytime you want fresh air. But, the Brownie is off limits, bucko, and if I come back and hear you've been after him, I'll take wolf‑shape and tree you. Understand?"

  Svartalf jerked his tail at me, straight upward.

  Virginia Graylock, who had for an incredible few hours been Mrs. Steven Matuchek, entered the living room. I was so stunned by the view of tall slenderness in a white dress, straight aristocratic features and red hair shouting down to her shoulders, that the voice didn't register except as a symphonic accompaniment. She had to repeat: "Darling, are you absolutely sure we can't take him? His feelings are hurt."

  I recovered enough to say, "His feelings are made of tool steel. It's okay if he wants to share our bed when we get back, I guess?within reason?but fifteen pounds of black witchcat on my stomach when I'm honeymooning is out of reason. Besides, what's worse, he'd prefer your stomach."

  Ginny blushed. "It will be odd without my familiar, after these many years. If he promised to behave?"

  Svartalf, who had been standing on a table, rubbed against her hip and purred. Which was not a bad idea, I thought. However, I had my foot down and wasn't about to lift it. "He's incapable of behaving," I said. "And you won't need him. We're going to forget the world and its work, aren't we? I'm not going to study any texts, nor visit any of my fellow theriomorphs, even that were‑coyote family down at Acapulco who invited us to drop in. It's going to be just us two, and I don't want any pussy?" I braked as fast as possible. She didn't notice, only sighed a little, nodded, and stroked a soothing hand across the cat's back.

  "Very well, dear," she said. With a flick of her earlier self: "Enjoy wearing the family pants while you can."

  "I intend to do so all the time," I bragged.

  She cocked her head. "All the time?" Hastily: "We'd best be on our way. Everything's packed."

  "Check, mate." I agreed. She stuck out her tongue at me. I patted Svartalf. "So long, chum. No grudges, I trust?" He bit a piece out of my hand and said he supposed not. Ginny hugged him, seized my arm, and hurried me out.

  The home to which we'd be coming back was a third‑floor apartment near Trismegistus University. Our wedding this morning had been quiet, a few friends at the church, a luncheon afterward at somebody's house, and then we made our farewells. But Ginny's connections in New York and mine in Hollywood have money. Several people had clubbed together to give us a Persian carpet: a somewhat overwhelming present, but show me the bridal couple who don't like a touch a of luxury.

  It lay on the landing, its colors aglow in the sun. Our baggage was piled in the rear. We snuggled down side by side on cushions of polymerized sea foam. Ginny murmured the command words. We started moving so smoothly I didn't notice when we were airborne. The carpet wasn't as fast or flashy as a sports‑model broomstick, but the three hundred dragonpower spell on it got us out of the city in minutes.

  Midwestern plains rolled green and enormous beneath us, here and there a river like argent ribbon; but we were alone with birds and clouds. No wind off' our passage got by the force screen. Ginny slipped her dress. She had a sunsuit beneath it, and now I understand transistor theory; the absence of material has as real an existence as the presence. We sunbathed on our way south, stopped at twilight for supper at a charming little restaurant in the Ozarks, and decided not to stay in a broomotel. Instead we flew on. The carpet was soft and thick and roomy. I started to raise the convertible top, but Ginny said we'd keep warm if we flew low, and she was right. Stars crowded the sky, until a big yellow Southern moon rose to drown half of them, and the air was murmurous, and we could hear crickets chorus from the dark earth below, and nothing else is any of your business.

  XV

  I KNEW EXACTLY where I was bound. A wartime friend of mine, Juan Fernandez, had put his Army experience to good use. He'd been in the propaganda section, and done many excellent scripts. These days, instead of preparing nightmares to send the enemy, he was broadcasting a popular dream series, and his sponsors were paying him accordingly. In fact, everyone loved Fernandez except the psychoanalysts, and they're obsolete now that scientific research
has produced some really efficient antipossession techniques. Last year he had built a lodge in the country of his ancestors. It stood entirely by itself on the Sonora coast, at one of the loneliest spots on Midgard and one of the most beautiful. Fernandez had offered me. the use of it this month, and finny and I had set our wedding date accordingly.

  We glided down about noon the next day. Westward the Gulf of California burned blue and molten, white. Surf broke on a wide strip of sand beach, cliffs rose tier upon tier, finally the land itself rolled off to the east, dry, stark, and awesome. The lodge made a spot of green, perched on a bluff just above the strand.

  Ginny clapped her hands. "Oh! I wouldn't have believed it!"

  "You Easterners don't know what big country is," I said smugly.

  She shaded her eyes against the sun‑dazzle and pointed. "What's that, though?"

  My own gaze traveled no further than her arm, but I remembered. Atop a cliff, about a mile north of the lodge and several hundred feet higher, crumbling walls surrounded a rubble heap; the snag of a tower stood at the northwest angle, to scowl among winds. "La Fortaleza," I said. "Spanish work, seventeenth century. Some don had an idea he could exploit this area for profit. He erected the castle as a strong point and residence, brought a wife here from Castile. But everything went wrong and the place was soon abandoned."

  "Can we explore it?"

  "If you like.

  Ginny laid a hand on my shoulder. "What's wrong, Steve?"

  "Oh . . . nothing. I don't care for the Fortaleza myself. Even as a human by daylight, I sense wrongness. I went over there once after dark, wolf‑shape, and it stank. Not so much in a physical way, but?Oh, forget it."

  She said soberly: "The Spaniards enslaved the Indians in those times, didn't they? I imagine a lot of human agony went into that castle."

  "And left a residuum. Yeah, probably. But hell, it was long ago. We'll have a look around. The ruins are picturesque, and the view from there is tremendous."

  "If you really are worried about ghosts‑"